ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 18/WG8 N1930

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 18

Document Processing and Related Communication --

Document Description and Processing Languages

TITLE:

Report on informal meeting with W3C HTML editor

SOURCE:

Roger Price

PROJECT:

ISO-HTML

STATUS:

ACTION:

For information

DATE:

May 16th 1997

DISTRIBUTION:

WG8 and Liaisons

Introduction

I went to Cambridge MA on Thursday May 8th 1997 and had lunch with Dave
Raggett, the W3C staff member who leads the HTML language specification work.
We had a strictly informal conversation on the current HTML work in the W3C and
in WG8. After the meeting, I wrote some notes which I present here in a
slightly edited form.

Please remember that our meeting had no official status and that these notes
merely document our informal discussion. They do not represent any official
request for any action and are not a liaison statement. Some of the matters we
discussed such as an invitation to Dave Raggett to provide expert advice to the
ISO-HTML editors have already been the subject of action by WG8.

My notes

Hello Dave,

Here are my notes on our editor-meets-editor conversation yesterday in
Cambridge. If I have misrepresented you in any way, my apologies in advance.
The notes are in no particular order and are simply ideas for consideration.
They have no official value.

We discussed the different constituencies of the W3C and the ISO.

The W3C may not be able to achieve all that its technical staff believe is
desirable, in the face of opposition from major members:
"our product doesnt do that".

Close collaboration between the W3C and the ISO is very desirable at all
levels.

At the management level: it would be very helpful to be able to make a
public statement about collaboration. This should be designed to establish a
satisfactory public image. A suitable image would be created by an announcement
showing JTC1 and W3C chairpeople at a "kick-off" event calling for the
closest cooperation between their respective organisations. See the "Press
Information" section of the W3C home page. This could be completed with
quotes from senior people saying `Close cooperation between W3C and ISO will
send a clear message about Web standards'.

At the working level: on the ISO side we should invite Dave Raggett to
provide expert advice to the ISO-HTML editors on the W3C texts. I'm not sure how
this happens - it may require some rapid initiative to put it into place for mid
July. I believe that it would be helpful if Dave Raggett participated in such
an expert capacity in the preparation of the next version of the ISO text, for
example by participating in the editorial meeting in Dublin this summer.

It would be better for ISO-HTML to be based on Cougar drafts rather than on
HTML 3.2. Luckily ISO-HTML has anticipated this by already including RFC 2070
(Internationalization), <OBJECT>, etc., so the change is in the detail
rather than in the major structure. A request for this re-alignment, (which is
already covered by the existing project description), should be a part of the
input to SC18/WG8 from the current CD 15445 ballot process so that the new items
in Cougar may be reviewed as part of the disposition of comments from the CD
ballot.

I suggested that the result of joint W3C/ISO work would look like an onion
peel:

A detailed item-by-item review is needed to decide which W3C HTML Strict
items are in the core.

For the moment ISO-HTML is still specified in terms of SGML.

W3C is not constituted to exist any longer that its members wish it to
exist. It might decide to disappear as did the X-consortium. If the ISO is to
establish a close working relationship with the W3C leading through the
development of HTML/ISO-HTML to possible (probable) revisions over a period of
years, shouldn't the W3C be constituted as a perennial legal entity?